To save delivery fee for a dishwasher, I managed to get it put it in the back seat of the car (by shop staff) and drive it home. I then had to convince my partner to help me get it inside which involved walking around the side of the house to a big door at the front. On the way, the bottom of the box slipped out of my hands and the box landed on a rock in the garden. We picked it up and struggled with it inside. It had a big dent in the front panel but luckily it still worked!

The horror! You must get a brand new one, how can you stand to have a dishwasher with a dent in it?

/s

All the clothes will come out wrinkly. Oh the horror! You should switch to a non-dented clothes line, you know the retractable option that keeps line nicely curled up. You can never go wrong with a clothes line. And if anyone complains about you using a clothes line, you could use it on them. I'm not suggesting, just saying.

To save delivery fee for a dishwasher, I managed to get it put it in the back seat of the car (by shop staff) and drive it home. I then had to convince my partner to help me get it inside which involved walking around the side of the house to a big door at the front. On the way, the bottom of the box slipped out of my hands and the box landed on a rock in the garden. We picked it up and struggled with it inside. It had a big dent in the front panel but luckily it still worked!

The horror! You must get a brand new one, how can you stand to have a dishwasher with a dent in it?

/s

All the clothes will come out wrinkly. Oh the horror! You should switch to a non-dented clothes line, you know the retractable option that keeps line nicely curled up. You can never go wrong with a clothes line. And if anyone complains about you using a clothes line, you could use it on them. I'm not suggesting, just saying.

Well if you put your clothes in a dishwasher, having them come out wrinkly is likely a best case scenario.

To save delivery fee for a dishwasher, I managed to get it put it in the back seat of the car (by shop staff) and drive it home. I then had to convince my partner to help me get it inside which involved walking around the side of the house to a big door at the front. On the way, the bottom of the box slipped out of my hands and the box landed on a rock in the garden. We picked it up and struggled with it inside. It had a big dent in the front panel but luckily it still worked!

The horror! You must get a brand new one, how can you stand to have a dishwasher with a dent in it?

/s

All the clothes will come out wrinkly. Oh the horror! You should switch to a non-dented clothes line, you know the retractable option that keeps line nicely curled up. You can never go wrong with a clothes line. And if anyone complains about you using a clothes line, you could use it on them. I'm not suggesting, just saying.

Well if you put your clothes in a dishwasher, having them come out wrinkly is likely a best case scenario.

Brain fart of epic proportions. I win the Internets today!MgoSam wants to be friends with my clothes line.I need to buy a clothes line first.That means I'm spending money for stuff I don't need.Dammit, MgoSam gets to live another day./hijack foam

Several years ago we remodeled a bathroom from the studs out. I decided we would re-use the older but still OK toilet rather than spring for a $99 new one. Old toilet was pulled out and set in the formal dining room for 6 weeks, on a towel to avoid scratching the solid oak floor in that room. Sigh...6 weeks later the toilet goes back in to the new bathroom and I spent $800 getting the oak floor refinished due to the water damage left behind--apparently there was a tiny bit of moisture remaining in the unit and the towel held that water against the wood all nice and air-tight. Though the floor is now redone I can still detect that dark water stain, they couldn't make it completely vanish without sanding a valley into the surface. Lovely reminder, and I spent $800 to save $99. Stoopid.

Several years ago we remodeled a bathroom from the studs out. I decided we would re-use the older but still OK toilet rather than spring for a $99 new one. Old toilet was pulled out and set in the formal dining room for 6 weeks, on a towel to avoid scratching the solid oak floor in that room. Sigh...6 weeks later the toilet goes back in to the new bathroom and I spent $800 getting the oak floor refinished due to the water damage left behind--apparently there was a tiny bit of moisture remaining in the unit and the towel held that water against the wood all nice and air-tight. Though the floor is now redone I can still detect that dark water stain, they couldn't make it completely vanish without sanding a valley into the surface. Lovely reminder, and I spent $800 to save $99. Stoopid.

That really sucks. But it does make me feel ever-so-slightly better about spending $800 on a very un-mustachian toilet earlier this year. I needed something very small for a very small bathroom, and options were quite limited.

I have a lot of these but by far the scariest was when I tried to tow a backhoe-loader home myself to save the delivery fee. I didn't want to pay the $200 delivery fee to home depot to rent the backhoe so I brainstormed how I could do it myself. The home depot trucks do not allow towing. Uhaul trucks do come with a tow hitch, so rented a Uhaul truck and took it to Home Depot and the rental person hooked it up to the truck. While Driving home down a hill, the hitch came off the ball (because it was the wrong size ball) and the trailer started jackknifing. Eventually the trailer slammed into the back of the uhaul denting the bumper and breaking the trailer but it did stop the jackknifing. Scariest movement in my life. I pulled in a packing lot and spent 30 minutes freaking out over what this was going to cost me and how I almost killed a few people.

I called the Home Depot rental guys and they were so afraid of getting fired for hooking it up wrong they brought their own truck out, hauled the backhoe to my house and then fixed the trailer without letting Home Depot know what happened. The Uhaul was already so dented the Uhaul people didn't notice a new dent. So I made it out alive but I learned a few lessons that day.

Several years ago we remodeled a bathroom from the studs out. I decided we would re-use the older but still OK toilet rather than spring for a $99 new one. Old toilet was pulled out and set in the formal dining room for 6 weeks, on a towel to avoid scratching the solid oak floor in that room. Sigh...6 weeks later the toilet goes back in to the new bathroom and I spent $800 getting the oak floor refinished due to the water damage left behind--apparently there was a tiny bit of moisture remaining in the unit and the towel held that water against the wood all nice and air-tight. Though the floor is now redone I can still detect that dark water stain, they couldn't make it completely vanish without sanding a valley into the surface. Lovely reminder, and I spent $800 to save $99. Stoopid.

That really sucks. But it does make me feel ever-so-slightly better about spending $800 on a very un-mustachian toilet earlier this year. I needed something very small for a very small bathroom, and options were quite limited.

I wanted a cube bookshelf like the one from Ikea about 5 years ago, but didn't want to pay that much for it. Went on Craigslist, fell in love with a "homemade" cube bookshelf that had all these squares of various dimensions for $20. Drove to person's house to buy and pick it up. Didn't fit in our car. Borrowed father-in-law's truck, got it home, got it in the house, returned the truck (husband is pissed off because this has taken an entire Saturday at this point). Put my books on it. Went to bed. Got woken up by a crash, entire thing collapsed into a pile of wood and books in the living room! We put the broken wood bits outside on the patio in the middle of the night, and both got splinters. Eventually, we had to haul the wood to the dump. I finally bought the cube shelf from Ikea like 2 years later.

Husband still brings this up when he thinks I'm being unreasonably frugal. It has provided way too much ammunition!

Just did one of these. I've just come back from a 2-week trip. Wanting to conserve energy while we were gone, I decided to unplug all unnecessary appliances and lights.

Now my basement smells like death, and I could not figure out why. We had shut the water as well, so figured perhaps there was stagnant water. After searching pretty much every cause (short of calling a plumber), we finally realized that the basement freezer was unplugged... Apparently, it was plugged into a radio (go figure...) and I unplugged the radio, not knowing the freezer was plugged into it.

We wasted about 200$ Worth of food, 3 huge garbage bags that stink to high heavens (and will have to wait 1.5 weeks before being picked up) and our house smells terrible. Cleanup was also not fun, to say the least. The mixture of melted meats, fruits and vegetables that have been rotting for 2 weeks in a closed container...Gross.

Needless to say, next time I'm not unplugging anything near that *$%) freezer....

Reminds me of the time that DH unplugged the deep freeze (in the garage) to plug in power tools (just for a couple hours). UGH. you know what happened...

I once bought a pair of Nike knock off running shoes while I was overseas. I was pretty excited with my $20 purchase and figured I had saved $100. Anyway a long story very short... Within a month the sole on the left shoe started falling apart. I even applied superglue and other glue to keep the sole on there. To make matter worse, I was on a long run when the shoe came completely apart and I nearly lost the sole. I had to awkwardly walk back to my place. Every step I was trying to keep the shoe holding together just a little longer. Taking them off was not an option because I was running on gravel and even some areas had glass.

Another time I can think of was when I was working at McDonalds. I had this pair of nice black slacks that I wore for over a year. Probably more like 2 or 3 years and about 3-4x per week. I could tell they were starting to wear on the legs and a couple of other minor areas. Work was was extremely busy...

One day while I was working in the grill area with about 4 other individuals and someone had left a stack of bread buns behind me. While I was doing about a hundred things at once (multitasking), I back up into the buns and somehow snagged my pants. The whole back of my paints easily ripped open because the pants had dry rotted or the material had become so thin. Instantly I felt a breeze coming in as if I was wearing nothing. I was in charge of the grill changed the rotation that put everyone on the other side of the grill whereby I was behind them. I took a few seconds to call my mother who brought me another pair of pants. That 15 minute wait seemed to last an eternity and we were slammed pack with customers. When my mom got there I asked someone to go grab them from my mom and then walked my bare ass downstairs to change. If we were not so busy I think everyone would have noticed. Thankfully only my mom found out.

I had a coupon for a free coffee at Caribou once, went to the one down on campus, had to parallel park and hit a curb. I jarred something loose in my car's undercarriage and ended up paying $45 to the garage to fix it. Most expensive cup of coffee I've ever had.

My daughter recently bought a stuffed bunny rabbit at a garage sale. She's only four, so she got a pretty good price, perhaps $0.25. She was visiting her grandparents yesterday and came home without the bunny, refusing to sleep until we could find it. So my father-in-law drove 15 miles round trip to bring her this bunny. $6 in driving costs purely to deliver a $0.25 bunny.

went to Shoppers last Friday to get some food items that were on sale and I had a digital points coupon for that day: spend $20, get 8000 points (points value = about $10). Got to the cash and their credit card readers were out of service. Rather than pay all in cash (which I had), I used $10 of points that I'd accumulated. Only to find out after the fact that because I'd purchased with points, that meant that I couldn't collect on the digital points coupon.

I have a lot of these but by far the scariest was when I tried to tow a backhoe-loader home myself to save the delivery fee. I didn't want to pay the $200 delivery fee to home depot to rent the backhoe so I brainstormed how I could do it myself. The home depot trucks do not allow towing. Uhaul trucks do come with a tow hitch, so rented a Uhaul truck and took it to Home Depot and the rental person hooked it up to the truck. While Driving home down a hill, the hitch came off the ball (because it was the wrong size ball) and the trailer started jackknifing. Eventually the trailer slammed into the back of the uhaul denting the bumper and breaking the trailer but it did stop the jackknifing. Scariest movement in my life. I pulled in a packing lot and spent 30 minutes freaking out over what this was going to cost me and how I almost killed a few people.

I called the Home Depot rental guys and they were so afraid of getting fired for hooking it up wrong they brought their own truck out, hauled the backhoe to my house and then fixed the trailer without letting Home Depot know what happened. The Uhaul was already so dented the Uhaul people didn't notice a new dent. So I made it out alive but I learned a few lessons that day.

Treedoc

At this point I would be happy with the simple fact that no one was hurt. Pretty surprised the people at home depot didnt realize the ball was the wrong size.

I recently tried to change the cartridge in my upstairs shower to address a slow drip. Researched the process for several days, bought the supplies, turned off the water main and went to work. Somehow, I managed to twist and strip the pipes in the wall behind the shower, so when I was testing the shower, TONS of water leaked down the back of the wall, through the chandelier on the first floor, and dripping on the fuse box in the basement. Husband came home, called emergency plumber and the kids and I went to a hotel--no flush toilets, etc. The plumber capped the pipes then came two days later to fix the shower. What I thought was going to be a $40 job turned out to be about $650 for the plumber and $100 extra supplies I bought and $100 hotel stay. I did, however, find an awesome new plumber who was sympathetic and non-shaming. He even mentioned that showers are easy to mess up compared to other plumbing issues and that if I had called them to do what I was trying to do, it would have cost about $350 anyway. Lesson learned, I'll stick to drain issues and leave supply issues to the pros.

I recently tried to change the cartridge in my upstairs shower to address a slow drip. Researched the process for several days, bought the supplies, turned off the water main and went to work. Somehow, I managed to twist and strip the pipes in the wall behind the shower, so when I was testing the shower, TONS of water leaked down the back of the wall, through the chandelier on the first floor, and dripping on the fuse box in the basement. Husband came home, called emergency plumber and the kids and I went to a hotel--no flush toilets, etc. The plumber capped the pipes then came two days later to fix the shower. What I thought was going to be a $40 job turned out to be about $650 for the plumber and $100 extra supplies I bought and $100 hotel stay. I did, however, find an awesome new plumber who was sympathetic and non-shaming. He even mentioned that showers are easy to mess up compared to other plumbing issues and that if I had called them to do what I was trying to do, it would have cost about $350 anyway. Lesson learned, I'll stick to drain issues and leave supply issues to the pros.

Kudos for trying!

I need to get to the point in life where I can say "if it doesn't work out, at least I tried to fix it first."

I have very little OCD in my life, but it shows up in all the wrong places. :(

My closest confidant and I were talking. He mentioned that he wanted to get some tea to brew to save money.

Went to tea store with Maisilph. Maisilph started to smell all of these different teas. Maisilph up walking out with $100 worth of tea.

MiL received a voucher for a 'boutique' tea franchise that have popped up in a lot of shopping centres over here.

Spent 40 minutes trying samples and getting them to weigh out bits of this and that.

When it came time to pay, she handed over the voucher only to be told she was in the wrong store. The voucher was for the competing tea franchise.

Torn between saving her dignity or the money, she opted for the money. Left $150 worth of beautifully wrapped tea on the counter, and fled.

I've had similar happen to me. When visiting Quebec City, noticed a couple of great pieces of art work for $150 each. I thought to myself they are worth triple that at least. Told sales person I'd be back in a few hours after some other exploring. Came back and told the new sales person that I would like those two pieces over there. Easiest sale of her life. She rings them up but the cost is $2300. Turns out, they were $1,150 each, which in French is written 1 150. There was a huge space between the ones so I didn't notice the first one. Wife and I apologized and walked out of there empty handed.

My closest confidant and I were talking. He mentioned that he wanted to get some tea to brew to save money.

Went to tea store with Maisilph. Maisilph started to smell all of these different teas. Maisilph up walking out with $100 worth of tea.

MiL received a voucher for a 'boutique' tea franchise that have popped up in a lot of shopping centres over here.

Spent 40 minutes trying samples and getting them to weigh out bits of this and that.

When it came time to pay, she handed over the voucher only to be told she was in the wrong store. The voucher was for the competing tea franchise.

Torn between saving her dignity or the money, she opted for the money. Left $150 worth of beautifully wrapped tea on the counter, and fled.

I've had similar happen to me. When visiting Quebec City, noticed a couple of great pieces of art work for $150 each. I thought to myself they are worth triple that at least. Told sales person I'd be back in a few hours after some other exploring. Came back and told the new sales person that I would like those two pieces over there. Easiest sale of her life. She rings them up but the cost is $2300. Turns out, they were $1,150 each, which in French is written 1 150. There was a huge space between the ones so I didn't notice the first one. Wife and I apologized and walked out of there empty handed.

I love a particular smoothie from a particular place that I walk by on the way to our downtown office. I don't get them often, but every time I do, it irks me to pay so freaking much. So I broke down and bought the ingredients. I made my homemade version for the first time this morning. And it was AWFUL. I tried to force it down, because I hate wasting food, but I just couldn't. I don't know if it's because my proportions were off, or my avocado was kinda old, or what. But just undrinkable.

I almost bought the actual smoothie on my way to work, but the line was too long.

Many, many years ago, I had some money in a TESSA with a financial institution called the Cheltenham and Gloucester Building Society. I spotted that I could get a better interest rate in a different financial institution, and applied to transfer it. Days later, the Cheltenham and Gloucester Building Society announced that it was demutualising and people holding certain accounts, including TESSAs, would be entitled to a large wodge of cash or free shares.

If I'd kept my eye on the money pages of the newspaper instead of using them to line the cat litter tray, I'd have known that this was pending.

went to Shoppers last Friday to get some food items that were on sale and I had a digital points coupon for that day: spend $20, get 8000 points (points value = about $10). Got to the cash and their credit card readers were out of service. Rather than pay all in cash (which I had), I used $10 of points that I'd accumulated. Only to find out after the fact that because I'd purchased with points, that meant that I couldn't collect on the digital points coupon.

The really stupid thing is how much I let it bother me.

This really bothers me too. I've had my run-in with Shoppers points, a time or two.

Many years ago, a friend of the family was trying to be frugal while getting a load of soil from the local garden centre. He didn't want to pay for the delivery fee of perhaps $20 (maybe less). He borrowed my father's trailer and went to get the soil himself.

The load was too heavy for the trailer, and so it bent the axel on it. Not sure if he managed to get the soil home but he was out a whole bunch in order to fix my father's trailer.

Oh, man, I have a trailer full of these from growing up with my mom, whose favorite line is "it's just as good." [Side note: current plan is to get her tombstone done in Corian instead of granite, because it's just as good]

My own example has to be my fruit trees. When we bought this house, it had a huge yard, and so I decided to make a mini-orchard in the back corner -- we have a pick-your-own place, and it's just so expensive, so I loved the idea of putting in some money up front, but then having delicious home-grown fruit for years and years. We forked over for 8 trees (peaches, nectarines, apricots, apples, pears), and I paid up for installation because I wanted them done right (plus they came with a one-year money-back guarantee if they did the professional install), so it was probably around $600. It has now been approximately 10 years, with of course more carrying costs -- fertilizer, deer and bug sprays, etc. -- and let's not even talk about all of the free manual labor we have provided. So 8 trees x 10 years, and my fruit yield has been (you ready? drumroll please): one 3" pear.

Oh well, at least my blackberries are growing like the weeds they are. . . .

One of my friends bragged about not taking out any student loans to finish undergrad. I asked him how he made it work. He told me that he maxed out a couple credit cards.

I mean this could still be smart if they were on 0% APR cards and he either paid them off by the end of the promo rate or he did a balance transfer to another 0% card. But this is highly unlikely.

I did that. One card had 3% APR for the lifetime of balance. I stupidly paid it off within 2 years of graduation.

Oh man, I'm sure I bragged about this before, but I once had a promo where it was 0% forever as long as you made two purchases a month. I regularly purchased $0.05 of gas (one small squirt) from the self-serve pump. Still had to make minimum payments, though, so after about 8 years it was finally time to pay off the balance in full.

Just did one of these. I've just come back from a 2-week trip. Wanting to conserve energy while we were gone, I decided to unplug all unnecessary appliances and lights.

Now my basement smells like death, and I could not figure out why. We had shut the water as well, so figured perhaps there was stagnant water. After searching pretty much every cause (short of calling a plumber), we finally realized that the basement freezer was unplugged... Apparently, it was plugged into a radio (go figure...) and I unplugged the radio, not knowing the freezer was plugged into it.

We wasted about 200$ Worth of food, 3 huge garbage bags that stink to high heavens (and will have to wait 1.5 weeks before being picked up) and our house smells terrible. Cleanup was also not fun, to say the least. The mixture of melted meats, fruits and vegetables that have been rotting for 2 weeks in a closed container...Gross.

Needless to say, next time I'm not unplugging anything near that *$%) freezer....

Had a yard sale last summer after a household goods purge. Sold a popcorn air popper. Now I want to try roasting my own green coffee beans. Most popular beginner roasting option is an air popper, which I would have to buy again. Argh. I'll do my initial roasting attempts with a covered pan on the stove.

Still, after a year, out of all the stuff I got rid of, I only regret the popper and a hand drill.

I made my homemade version for the first time this morning. And it was AWFUL. I tried to force it down, because I hate wasting food, but I just couldn't. I don't know if it's because my proportions were off, or my avocado was kinda old, or what. But just undrinkable.

Smoothies are tough to get exactly right.

I've made the same smoothie every morning for more than a year, and it still tastes different from day to day, depending on small changes in amounts.

Oh, man, I have a trailer full of these from growing up with my mom, whose favorite line is "it's just as good." [Side note: current plan is to get her tombstone done in Corian instead of granite, because it's just as good]

My own example has to be my fruit trees. When we bought this house, it had a huge yard, and so I decided to make a mini-orchard in the back corner -- we have a pick-your-own place, and it's just so expensive, so I loved the idea of putting in some money up front, but then having delicious home-grown fruit for years and years. We forked over for 8 trees (peaches, nectarines, apricots, apples, pears), and I paid up for installation because I wanted them done right (plus they came with a one-year money-back guarantee if they did the professional install), so it was probably around $600. It has now been approximately 10 years, with of course more carrying costs -- fertilizer, deer and bug sprays, etc. -- and let's not even talk about all of the free manual labor we have provided. So 8 trees x 10 years, and my fruit yield has been (you ready? drumroll please): one 3" pear.

Oh well, at least my blackberries are growing like the weeds they are. . . .

I'm guessing that there's something you can do about the lack of fruit. Whether you want to do it is an entirely different thing however. Find a garden place and ask?

I'm guessing that there's something you can do about the lack of fruit. Whether you want to do it is an entirely different thing however. Find a garden place and ask?

I skipped that part of the story -- we've tried a number of different things and looked for guidance in a bunch of different places. We've been working on it every year, but the problems seem to change -- one year it's fungus, the next it's bugs, the next it's weather -- and we just haven't gotten ahead of it yet (channeling Roseanne Roseannadanna: it's always something). This year we have tons of peaches and three surviving pears, though, so I have my fingers crossed that some of them make it.